To Hull with it
Fable Pictures creative director Hannah Farrell outlines how Channel 4 series Hullraisers balances the portrayal of real-life problems facing its three central protagonists with moments of outlandish, heightened comedy. Season one of Hullraisers follows the lives of trio Toni, Paula and Rana as they juggle life, love and kids in a north-eastern corner of God’s own country, Yorkshire. Struggling actor Toni (Leah Brotherhead) is in denial about how much fun a mum in her 30s can have and is determined to live life like her 20s never ended, which is hard to do when you’ve got a seven-year-old daughter and a (very patient) long-term partner. Rana (Taj Atwal) has the life Toni would die for – she’s a determinedly single super-cop with a revolving door of Hull’s hotties and every week she has a new man, though they don’t come without drama. Toni’s sister Paula (Sinead Matthews), on the other hand, is content where she is: namely, happily married in Hull; more specifically, on the sofa eating squirty cream. Hullraisers is the first comedy we’ve produced at Fable, but like our previous works – films Stan & Ollie, Wild Rose and Rocks and miniseries Anne Boleyn – it has all of the values that we as a company hold and thread through everything we put on screen. The ethos at Fable centrally focuses on mainly (but not always!) female, distinctive stories told through a new perspective. Our projects always have some form of aspirational quality, and hopefully a little something … Continue reading To Hull with it
